Recently, consumers have expressed significant interest in “place shifting” devices that allow viewing of television or other media content at locations other than their primary television set. Place shifting devices typically packetize media content that can be transmitted over a local or wide area network to a portable computer, mobile phone, personal digital assistant, remote television or other remote device capable of playing back the packetized media stream for the viewer. Placeshifting therefore allows consumers to view their media content from remote locations such as other rooms, hotels, offices, and/or any other locations where portable media player devices can gain access to a wireless or other communications network.
Placeshifting devices may vary greatly in design and model depending upon user requirements. Accordingly, it is common to package such devices having the bare minimum requirements while accompanying them with media (e.g., CD, DVD) that contains all possible firmware versions for every type of device available to the user. This model of updating firmware is unsatisfactory in a number of respects. For example, it results in an unnecessarily large installer package being provided with the device. At the same time, this method requires the computer media to be constantly updated when additional models of placeshifting devices are offered.
It is therefore desirable to create systems and methods for updating firmware on networked devices in a way that is efficient and easy to administer. These and other desirable features and characteristics will become apparent from the subsequent detailed description and the appended claims, taken in conjunction with the accompanying drawings and this background section.